Phobos Options

[tty]

Good catch on the splatter pattern Ed. That certainly does look more like a crater chain from a debris or cometary impact.

Now that is interesting. How do you get a splatter pattern/crater chain on a body with essentially zero gravity? It certainly can't be by stuff just falling back to the surface. Anything moving slowly enough to fall back on Phobos probably wouldn't be able to crater a marshmallow.
I suppose a string of debris might stay together well enough to hit Phobos on a subsequent orbit but it seems rather unlikely. It seems at least as likely to be debris coming from an impact on Mars itself.

[elakdawalla]

Wow, Phil, that's a really cool image, thanks for pointing it out!

--Emily

[Stu]

... and add a bit of colour, just 'cos it's Sunday night and there's nothing on telly until Medium comes on...

[nprev]

Great stuff, Phil & Stu!!! Now I know exactly how Phobos must have appeared to the crew of the spacecraft Rolling Stone as it approached Phobos in Heinlein's immortal novel...absent the industrial complexes and filled landing berths, of course...

Quick inspiration:

we sense therefore we are

unmanned and alone
solitary robots peer deeply into the Unknown
seeing, tasting, hearing that which no human has yet known,
like a splash of water or blast of radiation
on tender skins

We, safe in the cradle, see vistas dreamed of
yearned for, in our infant dreams
by generations denied their future by tumult,
by the restless and capricious nature of our species
by priorities, set too often by
those who cannot see far horizons,
even through eyes of silicon, gallium arsinide, feed horns and reflectors...

blindness is inexcusable
as the spectrum of the Universe unveils itself, reluctantly,
as bigger than our minds
what challenge, what wonder, can possibly compare?

we must see, at least

in order that someday we may touch

[Pygmee]

Here's a nice new Phobos image from Mars Express, orbit 3909:

[attachment=12280:phob_hrs...bit3909x.jpg]

Phil

Hey Phil, could you tell me where you got the pictures from orbit 3909, because I do find only the raw images until the orbit 3160 on the ESA server...
Thanks a lot

[Phil Stooke]

I found it in the place mentioned in post 30, above.

Phil

[elakdawalla]

Here's the direct link to the Willner et al. abstract (PDF).

--Emily

[scalbers]

Shall be interesting to see what shape model results Willner et al. are going to present at the November conference.

Seeing that image I wonder who launched that potato into low Mars orbit anyway ?

[elakdawalla]

Dr. Willner said I'd need to ask Neukum directly for permission to post that other image, but he pointed out one that had been released on the Web in February (apologies if someone else already posted this elsewhere):

Phobos über der Marsatmosphäre

--Emily

[Stu]

Wow, that's a gorgeous picture of Phobos, thanks for the link Emily... that one passed me by, somehow...

[ugordan]

That picture was around for quite a while now: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=84812

[Phil Stooke]

Here are a couple of Mars Express HRSC images of Phobos, from the PDS courtesy of G. Neukum. They have had a bit of extra processing in my usual manner to brighten the terminator area.

Phil

[scalbers]

That's something with three different orientations of grooves I can see in the top image...

[t_oner]

It is already gridded, it will be easy for Phil to make us a new model and map.

[ilbasso]

At first glance, I thought we were looking at it through a screen door.